The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2015, and October 31, 2016 (see FAQ for exceptions), are automatically nominated for the 2016 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on November 3, 2016, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

Beneath the generic title—when is
it not a time of torment for seen-it-all detective Charlie Parker?—lurks a
supernatural nightmare within a criminal nightmare.

Now that he’s been released from a
Maine prison after serving five years for possession of child pornography,
Jerome Burnel offers Charlie $50,000 to clear his name and find out who planted
the evidence that convicted him. Although he ordinarily reserves his time for
grander, darker schemes (A Song of Shadows, 2015, etc.), Charlie is tempted by his suspicion that
Burnel may well have been framed in revenge for his daring interruption of a
violent confrontation between blackmailing sexpot Corrie Wyatt and Henry
Forde, a
target who turned out to be a lot more dangerous than she was. While Charlie’s
pondering whether to take the case of the disgraced hero, Burnel vanishes, and
Charlie, who doesn’t think for a minute that he had the gumption to break
parole on his own, vows to track him down. The trail leads to Plassey County,
West Virginia, where a mountain cleft called the Cut is home to a murderous
nest of backwoods criminals, a sheriff determined to root them out, and the
Dead King, the fearsome presence that gives the Cut uncanny powers. Connolly
adorns his portentous clash-of-titans mythology with extravagant inventiveness:
every character has a florid back story and a resume of yearslong conflicts
with all the others. No matter how many lawmen and members of the Cut the
furiously boiling plot claims, others arise like zombies to take their places
as the tale lurches toward an apocalyptic confrontation and an epilogue in
which the Dead King is bested by a most unlikely warrior.

No more likely than late Faulkner
novels to win new fans for the author, but bestselling author Connolly’s fans,
who already know what they like, won’t care a bit.

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